Sorting out higher ed consolidation

Knoxville Metro Pulse has a good piece sorting through the growing debate about consolidating Tennessee’s higher education system. Of course, the article”s chief complaint is that the the main center of power pulling UT-K’s strings would lie in Nashville, not Knoxville :

Such a consolidated system would almost certainly be based in Nashville and would probably encompass the entity that presently has a role in university oversight: namely the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, which at least nominally coordinates the UT and Board of Regents systems. It follows the models of Georgia, North Carolina, and other states that have unified systems; a single governing board and a president would set the missions, policies, and budget of all university campuses. While each campus would have a chancellor who might have more administrative authority than the UT-Knoxville chancellor does today, the system president would be singularly responsible for government relations, including both state and federal funding.